


Ruinous

by LavenderLizards



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Anxiety, F/M, Hospitals, Secrets, mentions of coronavirus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25247752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavenderLizards/pseuds/LavenderLizards
Summary: Malcolm is at Gil's bedside when awakes in the hospital. Never intending to be there when his mentor regains consciousness, Malcolm struggles to suffocate the secrets that he's hiding.
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright, Malcolm Bright & Martin Whitly, Malcolm Bright/Dani Powell
Comments: 9
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

He lived in a dream that floated just beneath the surface. The waking world was only a wall of thinly veiled plastic away. It felt like being underwater. His limbs were lead but his head was weightless, floating upward, towards the light. The steady beep of his heart filled the silence and the smell of plastic and hand sanitizer was heavy in his achingly dry nose. 

With a deep breath, he tried to break through, to reach into the land of the living and grasp his own consciousness.

It worked.

A shout of pain roared to life at his stomach and screamed outward. Sticky eyes flying open, Gil’s hand automatically raced to the source of his anguish. As his fingers made contact with the hospital gown he let out a startled gasp. 

Just moments ago, Gil had been floating through the tepid waters of unconsciousness, slinking down a lazy river propelled by nothing but time.  
Now, he was scooting back and breathing hard, the world coming into focus around him too quickly. He became aware of everything all at once. The hum of the fluorescent lights blinding him, the rapid-fire beep of his own heartbeat reflected on the monitor, the pull of foreign cords against his arm, and the tinge of pain where a needle dragged against the thin flesh of his hand.

He went into his mind and flew through his memories like a burglar turning a house over. Books off the shelf, drawers yanked out, papers fluttering to the floor, cushions lifted... until he found what he was looking for.

His memory finally slid into gear and began churning and smoking, its laborious efforts producing details from the last night he could recall. The smack of his shoes against wet pavement, the press of the pad of his index finger against Endicott’s doorbell, the ornate foyer in which he stood with Endicott and one of his henchmen. He remembers thinking that Jessica was in grave danger. He replays the threat he uttered. And then...a flash of silver, a cry of pain as a blade slipped past his shirt, flesh, and fat, and into his abdomen.

But...what then?

Darkness. A jarring jolt. The sound of metal crunching. A swirl of night sky overhead. A groan. Jessica’s hair tickling his face as she lifted him from a trunk and put him into the car. Her perfume wrapping around him, her voice urging him to stay conscious and alive. 

“Gil?” 

His wild brown eyes focused and turned towards the familiar voice. 

“Kid,” he said in a voice that his own ears hardly recognized. The world tried to tilt around him and he narrowed his eyes in an attempt to steady it. “I was stabbed,” he uttered, the realization smacking into him like a physical blow. 

“Yeah,” Malcolm breathed. “Yeah, you were.” 

Malcolm’s hands were tied in a knot in his lap, icy fingers wrapped around one another as if he were holding his own hand for comfort. His digits tingled as hyperventilation tried to pull him under. He never intended to be here when Gil awoke. 

Under normal circumstances, he would have wanted to be - of course. But these weren’t normal circumstances. 

The relief he felt in seeing Gil finally wake up was eclipsed by the threat of a panic attack that rose up his spine, climbing each vertebrae like a ladder, until it arrived at his neck. Once there, the panic wrapped it’s inky hands around his throat and squeezed. He drew in too many breaths too quickly in order to combat the constriction.

“Is Jessica okay?” Gil croaked.

Malcolm scooted forward, awkwardly putting his knotted pale hands on the thin, woven, teal bedspread. “Yes, she’s fine.” 

He let out a sigh of relief, despite the pain it elicited. “She saved me,” he whispered. 

“Yeah, she told me...and the police... everything,” Malcolm recalled his mother's harrowing account and shuddered at just how close Gil came to death. Rather than dwell in the painful space of 'almost,' he looked around. Luckily, he caught sight of a cup of water resting on the edge of the table next to the hospital bed. He needed a distraction and it sounded like Gil could use a drink, so he reached for it. He plopped a straw into the Pepto Bismol colored cup and brought it towards Gil who craned his head forward until his lips caught the straw. 

Gil took a few gulps as Malcolm’s brain scrambled to cobble together an excuse to leave. 

He needed to leave. The walls were inching in, his heart was skipping beats, the guilt was rising flood fast. The rush of thoughts began and quickly grew out of control in the silence.

He had begun to pull the cup away from Gil when his hand started to shake. There was no hiding it. The straw rattled against the plastic as water came leaping out the sides, falling in large droplets on Gil’s right arm and the hospital blanket. Malcolm managed to set the trembling cup down and stood to get a paper towel. 

“I - I’m sorry,” he got up quickly and walked over to a sink in the room. He grabbed a fistful of paper towels and returned to blot at the spill. 

He was cleaning up Gil’s arm when he felt Gil’s other hand, warm and solid, coming to rest atop his own. “What happened? Where’s Endicott?” Gil asked, his brown eyes wide and imploring. 

Malcolm’s movements were suspended and a frown dragged at the corners of his lips. His sister’s bewildered face, covered in blood spatter, sprang to his mind's eye as soon as Gil had asked the question. It was the same image that haunted his newest nightmares. The details came into full focus; her glossed lower lip quivering before she finally spoke, the blown-wide black of her pupils, the shake of her bloodstained hands whisking red droplets towards the carpet. 

“Malcolm?” Gil prodded. 

Fear gripped the lieutenant as he witnessed the kid turn different shades like a human mood ring. First, the color drained from his face and he was white as a sheet. Then, the white shifted to gray before green began to tint the hollow of his cheeks. 

Malcolm's lips were thin, cracked, and pale, and his hair was disheveled. The bags under his eyes were more pronounced than ever and it made Gil wonder just how long he’d been out and what the hell happened while he was unconscious. He'd seen Malcolm at his worst, or so he thought, but this was taking the cake. Malcolm looked like hell warmed over.

“Did they arrest Endicott?” he asked more forcefully. 

Malcolm’s eyes slid up to Gil’s and the look he got in return sent a shiver down Arroyo’s spine. He was used to the haunted expression that would cling to Malcolm’s features when he spoke of his father, but they weren’t talking about Martin. 

“Tell me what happened Malcolm,” his tone changed, softened, as if he were trying to coax a scared kitten into his hands. Something was seriously wrong. 

“You need to give your statement before I tell you anything,” his voice nearly broke. He finished patting the spot dry and threw the paper towels away. “I should go get the nurse. I...should call Dani or JT...and Evans. I should call Evans. He said that he should take your statement, you know...not the team...and…”

“Malcolm,” Gil grasped the profiler’s forearm. “You looked like you haven’t slept at all. Your clothes are a wrinkled mess. You’re avoiding eye contact… I just want to know…” 

A beat of loaded silence passed between them. A thousand words sprang to Malcolm’s mind but he let them die behind his pearly prison-bar teeth. How could he even begin to tell Gil the truth when he could barely admit it to himself?

His mouth opened, lips parting in preparation to let something - anything - slip past, but no words came. He closed his mouth, lips returning to a small frown, and rather than speak, he decided to act. 

Bright swooped down and caught Gil off-guard as he hugged him. Malcolm was careful to avoid the injury, but his boa constrictor biceps wrapped around Arroyo as if he were a life raft. 

Gil could do little more than push down his shock and slowly bring his arms up to hug Malcolm back. His fingertips brushed against the soft fabric of Malcolm’s sweater and he noticed that the young man was shaking, pulling in erratic breaths as cool liquid ran down Arroyo’s neck and shoulder. 

He was crying. 

Malcolm tried to contain his anguish, letting only a handful of tears slip through his defenses when, in fact, there was a whole wall of water waiting behind his ocean eyes.

He could have stayed there for an hour - or an afternoon - but the sound of the door sliding open made Bright pull away. 

Malcolm stood and looked down at his mentor, his friend, and considered his relationship with Arroyo and how undeserving of it he was of it. 

He had stabbed his father. He had pressed a sharpened blade past Martin's guard rail of ribs and told himself that he did it to catch a killer. But did he? Or did he enjoy it? Gil still didn’t know the truth about that. Gil, his best friend. The man who risked his career to tell him to run. 

And what could he do now? He was struck with the same indecision that had plagued him when Ainsley slid the blade along Endicott's neck, just at his Adam's apple; Malcolm's feet immovable as he helplessly watched the crimson waterfall. 

He could still feel the weight of the cellphone in his hand, the heat from his cheek returned to him by the screen. The sounds of that night wouldn't leave him either, they found him in his sleep. But the nightmares were no longer reserved to night. Even now, in broad daylight, he could hear his father’s voice purring with pride over Ainsley in his ear. He could hear the ehco of Endicott's gaping mouth gurgling, lungs trying but failing to pull in air. After the flurry of silver flashes, Ainsley had asked what happened. At the time, he had scrambled to come up with what to say.

What was he supposed to do? Tell her the truth? Or lie and tell her he did it? Take the body to the basement and hide what she had done from the police? From the world? Ask daddy for help in covering up a murder and owe him twice over? Tell Mother and drag her into it too? Make her an accessory after the fact? Call the police and try to spin it as self defense? How on earth could they claim self defense when the victim had what...fifteen stab wounds and a slit throat? 

How could he tell Gil that Endicott was dead? That his was a family of monsters? 

And oh, the irony.

The years he and Ainsley spent judging Martin for being a killer when both of them proved capable of the deed. 

Malcolm’s psyche shuddered and splintered, hairline fractures growing into treacherous canyons. The only thing that felt solid and real was the warmth that radiated from Gil’s shoulders, the cool rush of his breath against his hot neck. 

“Look who’s up!” the nurse came floating into the room with a chipper-ness that felt foreign and wrong as it clashed with the dark cloud of despair that wrapped around Malcolm.

Time to run.

“I’ll get Evans so you can give your statement,” Malcolm said quickly, wiping away his tears and turning to leave. He could feel Gil's eyes heavy on his back, begging him to turn back around.

“You can tell me anything Malcolm. Always,” Gil said, sadness wrapped like a blanket around each word. 

Malcolm had reached the door and paused, his steady hand on the sliding glass frame leading out of the room. He seemed to consider this, face turned away from Arroyo, from the man he desperately and bitterly wished was his father. He had to force his mouth to work. “I know,” he said in a voice so small that the air conditioning nearly drowned it out. And yet, he already knew that he could never tell Gil or his Mother or his team or anyone the truth. The sentence, "I covered up a murder that my sister committed," knotted in his stomach and threatened to sour his soul. Swallowing hard, he urged his legs to carry him forward, and they complied. 

This secret was going to kill him.


	2. Chapter 2

After visiting Gil, Malcolm dragged himself home to shower, but the sliminess he felt at being a fraud and a liar wouldn't dissipate under the steady stream of scalding water. He tried to eat afterwards and even attempted to sleep, but neither went well. How could he function knowing that he would have to venture into the lion's den?

Despite his hesitancy, the next day, Malcolm dressed and decided on venturing to Rikers. 

The entire ride there, he could feel his stomach tightening. His jaw ached from how vehemently he ground his teeth together. Dread clung to him like cobwebs and wouldn't be brushed away by distraction or delusion. The Bronx melted away behind him as the river came into view and the island rose up beyond it. His hands tingled, but he just laced them together tighter and waited. 

He floated through the motions of getting out of the car, checking in, etc. 

The first thing that hit him as he walked into the bowels of the prison was the smell. The stink of sweat and desperation, of decaying dreams and rusting metal. Then, it was the sounds that became overwhelming; a cacophonous symphony of suffering. The clank of closing doors and heavy locks, the shouts and profanities, the guards barking orders, the ambient background noise of chaos. 

'Toto, we're not in Claremont anymore,' he thought as he travelled to the visitor's room. It was a large, cafeteria-like space with round tables. As soon as he entered, he saw the tell-tale halo of gray curls that made up the back of Martin's head. 

As if he had some sixth sense and could tell Malcolm was there, Martin twisted and turned to regard his approaching son. 

He smiled as he took in the sight of Bright nearing, but it wasn't his usual face-splitting grin. 

Malcolm quickly sat across from him and sucked in a deep breath. There was no red line here, no tether chaining the monster to the wall like a dog on a leash. Gone were the cushy comforts of Claremont, the reddish-brown wall, the security of Mr. David waiting in the wings, the smattering of papers on his father's desk. Here, Martin was stripped bare, treated like the monster he was. The soft afternoon sun that usually caressed his gray curls had been replaced by harsh fluorescent lights. It should have aged him, but it didn't. The orange jumpsuit should have washed out his color, but it didn't. 

"I'm surprised to see you." 

Malcolm's eyes snapped up from where they had affixed on his beard, staring through him at his own thoughts.

"Why?" 

"Oh, I don't know..." Martin shifted, his hands coming together on the corrugated table top. "Part of me wondered if you were going to snap completely," he leaned forward and whispered the last two words. 

"Why would I snap?" 

"Well you covered up your sister's misdeed, didn't you?" 

Malcolm swallowed, his throat clicking against itself. He could feel the blood draining away from his face. 

"It's why you're here. Because I'm the only one who knows," Martin purred. "Well, aside from Ainsley. But she's probably not in the best frame of mind to handle your worries and woes." 

He sucked in a breath and let it out as a sigh. Scooting forward, Malcolm looked around briefly before returning his eyes to Martin's. "What was I supposed to do?" 

"I think the question you actually want to ask is...what would I have done?" 

He grit his jaw and pain shot along the nerves of his face. "Fine. What would you have done?" 

"Same thing you did. Cover it up," his chains clanked as he gestured. "You love your sister and you know that the self defense angle can only go so far when it's clearly a crime of passion..." 

Malcolm's nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed. 

"I bet it was quite the bloodbath..."

"You don't know shit," Malcolm bluffed.

"I know more than you think," Martin inched even closer. "I know that my pride for Ainsley is well placed and you...well..." he frowned and his expression soured. 

"I what?" 

"You failed," Martin said matter-of-factly. 

Malcolm felt the slap of the verbal blow, sharp across his cheek as if it were a hand. 'That's why,' he thought to himself... 'that's why his smile had faltered. That's why he hasn't called me, "my boy."' The realization that he let Martin down sank down his throat like lead and settled heavy in his stomach. 

He hated that this even affected him at all. Why should he care if he let the devil down? 

"You could have shot him. You could have claimed self defense and it would have been plausible with a bullet hole or two," Martin continued, his muddied green eyes agleam. "You could have prevented your sister from realizing her murderous potential." 

Malcolm's lips parted, his mouth ready to launch a defense, but Martin wouldn't give him the chance. 

"This is your fault," Martin hissed. "And the fallout that you're experiencing now - the fallout that you may experience later - it's deserved."

A shudder rolled through Malcolm and he began to feel nauseous. 

"You have a long way to go to regain my favor," the words 'my boy' were noticeably absent from the statement. "You did well to hide what she did. You'd do better to get me out of here and back to Claremont." 

"Why should I do shit for you?" Malcolm was so leaned forward that the table dug into his belly and ribs. 

"Because I am your sounding board," he growled. "I am the only one you can turn to about this. I am the only one who knows that you stabbed me. I saw the shine in your eyes as you did it, felt the jolt of enjoyment through that blade."

The words pierced Malcolm and twisted, his emotions threatening to bleed. 

"I thought - in that moment - that you had potential. That you had a spine. But it was your sister who did what needed done, and she only did it because you were too much of a coward to do it yourself." 

Malcolm pushed down the rising tide of a panic attack.

"You want my approval. You're desperate for it. Thirsty for my pride, my acceptance."

"I'm not," he ground, the lie evident in his own quaking voice. 

"You are," Martin slid his hand out and grasped Malcolm's. A jolt of electrified terror shot up Bright's arm and sizzled beneath his skin. It was like being caught in a snare. He could have easily freed himself, but couldn't find the resolve to do so. His brain paused and left the rest of him in suspension. 

"If you want my company...my advice...my approval..." Martin's thumb brushed over the flesh of Malcom's hand, "...if you want to be *my boy*...then you're going to have to earn it." 

Malcolm tried to breathe, he tried to come up with a response, but nothing came to him other than tears. 

The guards were too occupied to notice the physical contact and bark at Martin. Part of Malcolm wanted to recoil as if he were burned while another part of him wanted to collapse in Martin's arms as he had when he was a small boy and had skinned his knees rollerblading. His eyes burned as tears welled. It was the second time in two days that he'd cried and he felt embarrassed, a rosy flame rising to his cheeks as he felt Martin's eyes upon his face. 

"Oh, Malcolm," Martin soothed. "I know you're under tremendous stress..." 

A tear escaped Malcolm's defenses and dashed down his face. Martin lifted his hand to brush it away, but the chain tying his hands to the table pulled taut and stopped him short. Surprisingly, Malcolm bent his head and allowed the contact, feeling the pad of Martin's thumb brush away the offending liquid. 

"It'll be okay Malcolm," Martin cooed. "I'll tell you what to do with the...with the buck. It's okay...it's alright if hunting isn't your strong-suit," he continued with the metaphor. 

"What if we can't ever recover from this?" he asked in a hushed voice, barely stopping himself from asking, "what if *I* can't recover from this?" His hand began to shake. "What if the...hunter...gets in trouble?" 

"I'll make sure that doesn't happen. I'll help you. And you'll help me." 

Malcolm's eyes were red, the color clashing against the hue of his gray blue eyes and making them stand out even more. He rationalized that it shouldn't bother him to be in Martin's debt, he had been from the moment he stabbed him, so what was another debt? He scooted back and tried to put air between he and Dr. Whitly. 

"I just wish all of this would go away..." he said in a small voice. 

"It will." 

But would it? The idea that things could 'go back to normal' was a farce.

How could Malcolm ever look at his sister the same way again? How could he look his mother in the eye - look Gil in the eye - and lie? How could he step foot in his own living room ever again? How could he hide this from his therapist? From Dani? From JT? 

"Nothing will ever be the same," he ground his fingertips against the rubber coated metal diamond pattern of the tabletop, his nails catching on uneven spots.

"No son, it won't."


	3. Chapter 3

Malcolm sat on the edge of his bed and let his eyes unfocus, gaze landing somewhere near the bottom of his dresser...he looked but didn’t see. The world around him had drawn inward to the point of implosion. 

Swallowing hard, he recalled the last time that he’d seen Martin. 

Five months ago. 

Malcolm took a breath in then let it out. Another inhale caught, then released. He held onto moments like fireflies in the cave of his hand, their wings tickling his flesh. But they always slipped away. The lights dimmed. The moments died. Time stopped. 

If it weren’t for the rising and setting of the sun, he might wonder if the entire world had stopped. Maybe life itself held its breath in an attempt to not breathe in the Corona-tainted air. 

Five months ago he had been working to get Martin transferred back to Claremont. But his efforts, his plans, his life, had come to a grinding halt much like everyone else’s. This left him alone to stew in the silence...his greatest nightmare realized. 

There was nothing more dangerous than being left alone with himself. 

His thoughts conspired against him. They grasped him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him down the drain of various worst case scenarios. He tried to stay busy...to focus on yoga and cooking and watching documentaries or reading books. But each activity naturally drew to a close, and when it did...when he was forced to endure his own company without distraction... panic gained momentum in his chest like a hurricane and threatened to steal both his breath and his sanity.

Even the silence of quarantine had become personified. It hulked behind him, stalking him, burying him in a static nothingness that could unravel even the most levelled person. 

How far away Ainsley’s act seemed now in the trenches of this global crisis. 

Of course after that meeting with Dr. Whitly he had...taken care...of Ainsley’s misdeed. He “got rid” of the buck and doing so broke something vital in him. 

Fidgeting with his thumbs, Malcolm continued to sit. To stare. To think.

Even five months and several miles away from his visit with Martin, the killer’s words clung to him like he had walked through a web and was still picking strands of it off of his heart. He had let Martin down and the worst part was that he cared. The worst part was the guilt he felt for not… “doing what needed to be done,” as his father so aptly put it. 

Martin’s blue green eyes remained lodged in his brain along with the souring tone of disappointment that accompanied his words...the downturn of his lips, the crease between his eyes. 

Malcolm ran a shaky hand over his face. 

After he’d gotten rid of the “buck,” he had tried reaching Martin but couldn’t.

Rikers had revoked phone privileges. And yard time. And visitors. 

For all he knew, his father could be lying in a tiny cell, twisting in paper thin sheets as fever and cough overtook him. For all he knew, his father could be dead. 

Malcolm swallowed but had no spit to ease his fears down his esophagus. So instead, he choked on them. 

He had taken an Uber to Rikers a week ago, now that New York City was...coping marginally better than it had been with the virus...but he was turned away. He spent the ride back to his place with his elbow on the door and his hand gripping his masked chin. He hadn’t panicked. He hadn’t cried. 

It wasn’t until he stood under the scalding hiss of his shower several hours later that his old familiar friends, terror and despair, caught up to him, closely followed by guilt. 

He shouldn’t care what happens to Martin. Dr. Whitly. The Surgeon. The heartless man who deals in cardiology.

“So what if he dies in prison. He deserves it,” Malcolm said the words aloud, listening to them bounce off the tile in his shower with an echoing slap that struck him in the face before falling like rain to the shower floor and racing towards the drain. 

He wanted to follow them. 

Down. 

Away. 

He wants to wake up to a world that never knew Coronavirus. He wants to tear apart his love and concern for a monster. He wants to undo what Ainsley has done. He wants to wash the blood of Endicott’s body off his hands, but no matter how hard he scrubs, it stays. 

He sees the red when he puts his head down on his pillow at night and closes his eyes. He can smell the metallic tang, he can feel it slide thick between his fingers.

The tears come easy now, alone in the shower, water racing down his flesh in endless rivulets. No matter how long he stays though, he’ll never be clean.

Eventually, he gets out. He has to when the water runs cold and goosebumps rise along his flesh. 

Days run together, once vivid colors swirling into a muddy brown. 

Jessica has groceries delivered to Malcolm’s loft - enough to feed an army. 

Dani stops by once - with a mask on of course - and Malcolm realizes that he misses seeing the raspberry hue of her lipstick pulled across that familiar smile. Her eyes glitter as they talk. They catch up for a few hours before she leaves.

Edrisa texts often and he’s grateful for the lighthearted jokes, and memes, and commentary on beloved books and fascinating shows that pass between them. He needs her optimism, he craves her joy; her light is the perfect counterpoint to his darkness. 

He knows though...how busy she is at the morgue...and his heart shatters for her. 

Ainsley has called a few times but they haven’t seen each other...not since...that night. Both are too terrified to broach the topic, to meet in person, so they don’t. 

JT left the city with his wife to protect her and the unborn baby. They’re staying at a cozy cottage somewhere in Vermont. He texts. 

All of the players are the same, but the game has changed. Dani says that they’ll get back to cases soon...that murderers haven’t taken time off. And he wonders if it’s sick to want - to want horrid things to happen so that he’ll be needed. So that he can get the hell out of his loft. 

His phone rings.

Adrenaline spikes somewhere deep in his abdomen but he belatedly realizes that it can’t be Martin. There’s no need for that cold splash of fear and curiosity to slide down his spine. 

Walking barefoot across the hardwood floor, he reaches the kitchen where his phone is charging and pulls it out from the cord. 

“Gil” the screen reads and he answers it. 

“Hey kid!”

“Hey Gil,” he smiles. 

As if sensing the lightening of his mood, sunshine chirps next to him. He gives her a smile and runs his fingers along the metal of her cage. 

“I think we can get back to work in another few weeks,” Gil starts. 

Malcolm lets out a sigh of relief that he hadn't known he’d been holding in. 

“Thank god,” he laughs and cranes his head back to stare at the ceiling and force the muscles in his neck to relax. He does thank God. Literally. He’s grateful that he can get back to work...that Gil recovered from the stab wound...that the team is alright. And still, his anxiety chirps in with a whispered: “For now. They’re alright for now.” 

Malcolm moves, as if he can walk away from that dark thought. He moves through his space, towards the large window that overlooks the street. 

“How have you been?” 

There it is...the question Malcolm had expected but dreaded. 

“Fine,” he reverts to the old standby. Gil knows he’s lying, but doesn’t push it. A beat of awkward silence passes between them and Malcom is desperate to shovel words over it. “Were you able to get a hold of anyone at Rikers?” 

God, what was he thinking bringing up Martin? 

“Really desperate to talk about anything other than yourself and your unraveling sanity aren’t you?” that internal voice taunts. He shoves it away and stares down at the deserted street beneath his bedroom window. 

Never. He will never get used to seeing New York City like this. Morphed into a ghost town, fear carried on every breeze that whistles between the buildings, red lights turning green for no one. 

“All I’ve gotten from them is that he’s alive.” 

Malcolm lets out a shaking sigh this time, relief sewn into the sound that he wishes he hadn’t let Gil hear. 

Arroyo has to wonder why he cares whether or not the monster lives. 

“What...what if he gets it? Will...I mean...do they let family know? Do they transfer inmates to hospitals if they…” 

“I don’t know Malcolm,” Gil answers sadly, knowing how tortured Malcolm is by the questions he can’t answer. 

What he doesn't realize are the other things plaguing his dearest friend. The lies that Malcolm has told, the secrets that Malcolm has kept, the way these unspoken things sit heavy on his chest in bed and wake him as if he’s having a heart attack in the dead of night. 

Malcolm has taken to Zoom therapy sessions during these "unprecedented times," but feels as though they aren't doing him a lick of good. Then again, how could they? He couldn’t tell her how Nicholas Endicott and Eve Blanchard haunted him, their specters coming to him as hallucinations, their faces appearing his nightmares. 

“Hey, guess what?” he could picture himself facing his therapist who he’s known for 20+ years and saying, “I witnessed a murder! And then I asked my serial killer father how to divest of the body. Now I’m hallucinating the victim in addition to my murdered girlfriend!” 

“You there Mal?” 

“Yeah, sorry,” he cleared his throat and turned away from the window, letting the sunlight warm his back. 

Summer was quickly slipping into fall and it felt as though the entire year had been lost. 

“I’m here I was just...thinking.”

“You have a lot of time to think in quarantine, I’d rather you thought less and talked to me more,” his tone was pleading. He had asked to come over, but Malcolm didn’t want to risk it. If he was the reason Gil got sick, or worse, that he lost Gil...he’d never forgive himself. What most people didn't know at the precinct was that Arroyo was at a higher risk due to an autoimmune issue. 

So he stayed away, despite how it hurt his heart. 

And what would happen when he did see him in person? How was he going to bury what he’d done for Ainsley...no pun intended? How could he lie to his closest friend? His father figure? His hero?

“I - I just don’t know what to say,” Malcolm admitted. “I’m just tired. And I worry...about Mom, about you.” 

“Oh pfft, don’t worry about me,” he soothed. “Your mother on the other hand...I’m sure she’s so bored that she’s redecorated the entire manor.” 

Malcolm laughed and imagined his mother holding wallpaper samples up to the walls. 

Oddly enough though, it was he and Ainsley who had redecorated the living room. Malcolm had convinced his mother to never leave Gil’s side during his recovery, giving him and his sister enough time to erase any and all evidence that a murder had taken place in their home. 

The siblings fought over whether or not to just tell her but...that would force her into a position of lying to Gil. Lying to Gil *and* knowing what her daughter had done. 

So they kept the secret and scrambled to redo the living room. Luckily, Jess had redecorated recently, so the furniture could be ordered quickly and rushed with cash. They cleaned and scrubbed and sanded the floors down themselves, then had the hardwood replaced entirely in the middle of the night with the lights dimmed. Once the new rug was in place, their work was done. 

Jessica never said anything, so they assumed that they’d gotten away with it. 

Disposing of the body was not so easy. 

Martin’s grin flashed through Malcolm’s mind and he shuddered. It was as if Dr. Whitly’s fingers were still wrapped around his hand, it’s weight and warmth breathed to life through memory. 

“Malcolm?!” 

“Yes?” 

“I asked how Jessica is.” 

“Oh, she’s...fine,” his hand shook.

“I’m sorry, I...I have to go Gil.” 

“To where? No one’s going anywhere Malcolm.” 

“Maybe not, but...Sunshine is squawking at me to feed her so…”

Gil sighed, a small, defeated sound that twisted behind Malcolm’s ribs and made that guilt roar to life. He knew Malcolm was lying.

“Okay, I’ll let you go then.” 

“I’ll call you back tomorrow, alright?” 

“Alright. Take care kid.” 

“Take care Gil,” he said softer, then pulled the phone away from his hot cheek and hung up.


End file.
